But I'd guess a combination would be considerably more effective than either.

Well, it seems like a case of clashing intuitions. Learning another language might give some cognitive benefits and it will provide real-world examples of language not being a perfect representation of reality, but I think those benefits will be weak and not worth the effort. And I'm very doubtful of the idea that there are some general insights that can be acquired only through language-learning.

And on the second point: I don't believe that perfect translations are possible. By mentioning the possibility of future translation software, I wanted to point out the fact that the author of quoted article kind of ignores technological progress (well, except that the future will be full of iPads and they shall be rollable!). And perfect translations are unnecessary for the purpose of practical communication anyway (and hey, if I'm speculating about the awesomeness of future AI, I might as well postulate that the translators will be smart enough to alert you whenever a possible linguistic confusion comes up).